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There are many reasons to celebrate Rebel Without a Cause, the epochal 1955 film that screenwriter Stewart Stern called “the story of a generation that grew up overnight.”

One of the best, and perhaps least known, is the role it played in changing society’s attitudes towards gays, something to remember as Toronto prepares to welcome Friday’s start of WorldPride 2014.

Nicholas Ray’s explosive drama of restless and alienated Los Angeles youth, along with Richard Brooks’ Blackboard Jungle the same year and Laszlo Benedek’s The Wild Onetwo years earlier, smashed the dull conformity of the Eisenhower era.

Rebel confirmed its smouldering lead actor James Dean as a Hollywood icon, all the more so since it opened just four weeks after the 24-year-old fatally crashed his silver Porsche 550 Spyder on a California highway.

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Dean made just three features in his brief film career — East of Eden came out earlier in ’55 and Giant followed in ’56 — but they were enough to build a legend. Rebel also confirmed him as a fashion icon: the bold red jacket he wears in the film is as unforgettable and imitated as Marilyn Monroe’s white “subway dress” from The Seven Year Itch and Audrey Hepburn’s black Givenchy dress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

That red jacket also figures prominently in a moving scene between Dean and his Rebel co-star Sal Mineo, a pairing that has been accurately described as the first in a mainstream film to depict homosexual desire.

Dean’s character Jim, a teen kicking against authority and parental neglect, becomes both friend and fascination to Mineo’s Plato, a lonely younger kid.

Plato is obviously gay, although it’s easier to say this in 2014 than it was in 1955. If you don’t pick that up from the photo of hunky Alan Ladd that Plato has taped inside his locker, or the looks of adoration he gives Jim, it becomes abundantly clear when he makes a coded declaration of love to Jim late in the film.

Jim has feelings for Plato, too, although the main narrative has him falling in love with Natalie Wood’s schoolgirl character Judy.

Dean knew what was going on. Prior to filming the intense encounter with Mineo in the abandoned Getty Mansion, he told him, “Look at me the way I look at Natalie.”

Such homoerotic bonding couldn’t be spoken about in the repressive ’50s, even though Mineo actually was gay and Dean was reputed to be bisexual.

It was an era when homosexuality was still a crime in many parts of America. Indeed, the censors of the day took pains to keep it that way.

A Production Code officer sent a memo to Jack L. Warner in the spring of 1955, during the filming of Rebel Without a Cause, reminding the Warner Bros. honcho that “it is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.”

Most straight reviewers of Rebel didn’t pick up on anything beyond boy-meets-girl in the romantic entanglements, even as they recognized the effect the film would have on young viewers.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote: “There are some excruciating flashes of accuracy and truth in this film . . . The tendency, possibly typical of the behaviour of certain youths, may therefore be a subtle commentary but it grows monotonous.”

The strongest impact the film makes is non-verbal, operating on an unconscious level. The mere sight of Dean and Mineo exhibiting unabashed love for each other sent a powerful message. Dean’s Jim isn’t afraid to show affection for Plato as well as Judy.

The significance and appreciation of Rebel Without a Cause as a gay-positive cinema landmark has grown along with society’s understanding of homosexual love, which has evolved in the decades since the film’s release from hostility to tolerance to outright support, as WorldPride shows.

It’s something I chatted about this week with actor Ethan Hawke, who was recently in Toronto and who has long been a supporter of gay rights. He’s also a James Dean fan, having used a film clip of him in Hamlet, the 2000 adaptation of the Shakespeare classic that Hawke starred in and pushed to make happen.

“It’s a wonderful movie to pick,” Hawke said of Rebel Without a Cause, when I told him I was writing about the film to mark WorldPride.

“Nicholas Ray is such a great filmmaker and it’s a great example right now of how much more comfortable we are confronting sexuality than in the past. It doesn’t have to be all tucked away in innuendo any more, even in the way Tennessee Williams would have to tuck it away at the very end of his life.”

Hawke is 43, the father of four children, two of them teenagers. He’s seen a lot of changes in attitudes in his four decades, many of them driven by pop culture.

“It’s been fascinating to me. One of the biggest differences I think between my generation and my kids is that they have almost zero homophobia. They’ve grown up thinking that it’s not a big deal to have gay characters on TV or in movies like Boys Don’t Cry or Kiss of the Spider Woman.

“There are all these things that started this (gay acceptance) ball rolling, and now people are really comfortable talking about it. I think you’ll see a lot less teen suicide in the coming years. I really do believe that.”

This is a cheering thought, especially when you think of what happened to Mineo, who fought discrimination all his life and who also died young, murdered at age 37 by an intruder outside his West Hollywood home in 1976. He would have loved to celebrate WorldPride.

CELEBRATING DANCE ME OUTSIDE: Another filmwith a positive message of diversity is Bruce McDonald’s Dance Me Outside, a drama of life in an indigenous community, based on a book by W.P. Kinsella.

The film marks its 20th anniversary this year, an occasion to be observed by a special screening on June 21, National Aboriginal Day, at the Uptown Theatre in Barrie.

The 7 p.m. screening is being presented by the Barrie Film Festival and Redcloud Studios Inc. Stars Adam Beach, Jennifer Podemski and Ryan Rajendra Black will participate in a Q&A afterwards.

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